NFG in the Palm Beach Post
Posted 1/1/2007 by Suretone
Listening to Coming Home, the better-than-average set of sprightly pop-punk by Coral Springs' New Found Glory, is a surprisingly enjoyable experience. That's mostly because the 13 songs on it are made to be enjoyed.
That is, they're not snickering faux-dark treatises on murderous fantasies, weddings to hookers and how profoundly tragic it is to be a suburban rock star.
Instead, Coming Home is an album of love songs that follows the stages of a relationship from beginning to end and beginning again. It's all there, from the giddiness of being first smitten (Oxygen, Hold My Hand) to being in love (the title track) to falling out of love (Too Good To Be) and then fiercely falling back in (Boulders).
It's all written in beautifully vulnerable, snarkless, shout-out-it-loud terms, with an unself-conscious joy in the lyrics, the do-do-dos and the muted hand claps that find a sweet, genuine current of emotion without sacrificing edge. Coming Home is similar, in spirit, to the 1990s romantic pop punk crooning of Chicago's brilliant Smoking Popes. Both groups tap into something that's criminally missing from so much modern music (heck, from so much modern entertainment, period ) because everybody's so stupidly afraid of being sincere lest they be labeled pop parrots.
Singer Jordan Pundik's slightly nasal vocal delivery isn't that different from a lot of singers in this genre, but it curls into sweetness, rather than a snarl. Wrapped around journal-entry cute lines like "And you smell like angels oughta smell" on the boppy, '80s-ish Hold My Hand and the earnestly protective pleadings of It's Not Your Fault, Pundik's delivery is never cloying, ironic or dumb. Underscored by drummer Cyrus Bolooki's strong beat, the songs are like a pre-made mix tape about the ups and downs of making yourself honestly vulnerable to another human being.
Bravo.
The grade: A-
Palm Beach Post
Friday, September 22, 2006
Digg | 
Del.icio.us | 
Facebook | 
-->
Feed
